Wash Her Feet novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Basin
Somebody brought a folding chair.
It was set down in the gravel in front of the wall, facing the crowd, and it scraped.
I looked at Rafe.
He gave the smallest shrug, and his eyes said, I don't know either.
I walked to the chair and sat down.
Two hundred people watched me do it.
Shelby waited until the crowd was perfectly still.
"I have been lying to you for a long time," she said. "I'm going to try to stop."
Her voice was thin in the cold air, with no stage in it at all.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I don't think you should. I came to say what I did, out loud, where you can hear it."
She took a breath.
"I gave up my nursing license on Thursday. Nobody made me. I decided I should not be trusted near anyone's child."
A woman near the front covered her mouth.
"I have pleaded guilty, and the court has its part. This is mine. I stood on a roof with my feet over the edge and made her climb to me, and she climbed."
Her voice broke.
"She is afraid of heights, and she climbed."
The old man with the hat was weeping without a sound.
"My mother's name is on that wall," Shelby said. "She was a good woman. She worked two jobs. She taught me to hold still when I was afraid, and I turned that into a weapon and used it on someone who never raised a hand to me."
She turned her head and looked at the stone.
"I would like to say something to my mother, in front of you. I'm sorry. I made your name into an excuse."
The only sound in the lot was the wind in the new gravel.
Shelby wiped her face with the back of her hand.
Then she knelt.
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